Professors gone wild! Students pay the price. Page 8. theBARUCH COLLEGE, ticker THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK VOLUME 93 • ISSUE 9 WWW.THETICKER.ORG APRIL 7, 2008 Candidates spar over presidency BY MAYA KASHYAP you would have came to the USG NEWS EDITOR meetings and become involved […] It doesn’t take a lot. It takes one With the Undergraduate Stu- person to make a change on cam- dent Government elections heating pus,” she said. up, the debate on Tuesday, April 1, Hoque continued, “As far as in- served as a highlight of the process volvement, we did cosponsor many so far, as it was the fi rst time both clubs this year. We helped out a lot candidates shared their platform in of students. One thing people, the an open forum. Th e debate, held by students of this school have to un- Th e Ticker, pitted presidential can- derstand is that we cosponsor and didates Hernan Giraldo and Rez- fund and allocate money for clubs. wana Hoque against each other. It is our responsibility as the sena- Th e candidates squared off on tors at the E-board to attend every many issues like renovations of stu- event on campus because we do al- dent space, the student fee referen- locate money to them.” dum, and transparency within the In speaking about USG’s vis- government, among others. ibility, Hoque said, “Our name is Moderator Michael Wursthorn, all over Th e Ticker, of all the things managing editor of Th e Ticker, com- we’ve done on campus. Inside the menced the presidential debate by newsletter, there is an invitation for raising the question of current USG students to come to our meeting. initiatives and the plans for future Th ere’s a date and time. Now its up ones. Hoque described many ini- to the students to come in and fi nd tiatives already underway, such as out about us.” the “30 million dollars to start on 17 As the debate progressed, the Lex. We started on the game room pressing issue of student space and we started on the club room,” arose. Hoque favors the renova- she said of the renovations pres- JERADATE KANCHANAWONG I THE TICKER tion of the game room and the ently taking place. The two presidential candidates Hernan Giraldo, left, and Rezwana Hoque duke it out. transformation of the current TV In response, Giraldo replied, lounge into a gaming center. “I’ll try “I think everything that she said is my best to work with the auxiliary more or less what student govern- why USG has so many events on Giraldo also stressed that USG to me, but this year, I honestly don’t board to get as much furniture and ment is supposed to do, so I don’t campus, some of which are suc- should be supporting students by know what USG has done.” renovation space as much as pos- really see them going above and be- cessful but the majority aren’t. It’s co-sponsoring more events instead Hoque fi red back and said, ”I sible,” she said. yond what their duties and respon- just a misallocation of resources,” of conducting events on their own. think the reason why you don’t real- Giraldo, however, disagreed. sibilities are.” Giraldo’s plans for the he explained. “It’s just a matter of “Th ere are a lot of events that USG ly know what we’ve done is because “I don’t support this initiative. I future of USG’s initiatives include duplicating other events that other has now, that quite frankly, students you haven’t joined a single meeting think that there is very little student the proper distribution of funds clubs and organizations already don’t attend. I know I haven’t. I did this year. If you cared about chang- and resources. “I don’t understand have on campus,” said Giraldo. last year because they were relevant ing what you want to do on campus SEE DEBATE PAGE 5 Women’s weekend MBA students win big BY CHRISTOPHER ESPEJO in nat’l competition COPY CHIEF <Executive Lube International franchises by On Saturday, March 29 the fi rst Shell Oil. Intercollegiate Women’s Confer- Leadership Council’s Shell Oil is an oil and gas pro- ence took place at Baruch College. ducer with signifi cant presence in Th e event, sponsored by the Un- 2008 Business the United States; Jiff y Lube, with dergraduate Student Government, more than 2,000 service centers in Th e Ticker and the Offi ce of Student Case Competition North America, off ers car mainte- Life among others, invited a host of nance services such as oil changes, speakers and professionals to give BY NGA VU fuel system services, and inspec- a variety of workshops centered SENIOR STAFF WRITER tions. Combining the two compa- around issues women face today. nies was supposed to be a match Th e event, after some delays, A group of fi ve Baruch MBA stu- made in heaven, but there was a opened with keynote speaker Tirza dents won fi rst place in a national brand-repositioning problem. Barnes-Griffi th, a career counselor competition, surpassing students After countless hours of working who has worked in various fi elds from the University of Michigan, under high pressure, the team from and currently writes a column for Florida A&M University and Cor- Baruch had found a solution that a magazine DANA L. CANNON I THE TICKER nell University. Th is victory is ex- “was able to use Shell’s existing re- targeting A panel discussed female empowerment in “Transitions in Womanhood” workshop. tremely remarkable because it was sources to maximize their potential profession- the fi rst time Baruch students en- returns with minimal risk by simul- als and en- View a slideshow the Vertical Campus to begin the Body is a Wonderland,” one of the tered the competition. taneously: (1) satisfying their core trepreneurs. of the Women’s fi rst set of workshops. Th e discus- fi rst workshops focused on wom- Th e competition is organized by customer group, (2) entering into She set the Conference at sions were scheduled simultane- en’s health and how to eat well. the Executive Leadership Council a growing segment of the declin- tone for the ously, so students were required to Talks for the event began back and sponsored by Shell Oil. Th e ing market, (3) protecting existing event by theticker.org choose which workshop to attend, in November of 2007, although participants were asked to fi nd the product lines from cannibalization, touching on missing the other taking place at planning didn’t begin until Janu- solution for a business problem and (4) revitalizing the brand im- the struggle modern women face the same time. Th e workshops were ary of this year by USG. Originally, and present it to the ELC and Shell age.” in achieving equality and making a aimed at providing students with Baruch’s student government had Oil at Shell’s headquarters in Texas. In December 2007, when the mark in the world. After introduc- discussions on topics ranging from planned to make the conference Th e team from Baruch was assigned director of Graduate Student Life tions and breakfast, participants equality in the workplace to transi- a case on the problems stemming were ushered to the third fl oor of tions in womanhood. Titled “Your SEE CELEBRATING PAGE 7 from the recent acquisition of Jiff y SEE MBA PAGE 7 INDEX FEATURES SCIENCE LEISURE ADVERTISING Opinion . 8 CUNY Fruit fl ies, Your spring Business . 10 rallies rejoice! break To place an advertisement, Features . 14 against High-tech getaway is contact Edward Drakhlis at Arts . 16 Coca Cola. equipment only a train (646) 312-4713 or e-mail Science . 20 for 17 Lex. ride away. [email protected]. Leisure . 22 Sports . 23 Page 14. Page 20. Page 22. NewsPAGE 2 I THE TICKER NEWS APRIL 7, 2008 A place for the Pod people BY LILLIAN RIZZO Students have begun discovering SENIOR STAFF WRITER these StudyPods and they are grow- ing in popularity. Most students are Th e new StudyPods, small areas attracted to the comfortable light where students can sit in isolation green chairs that can be turned in and silence, according to the dep- any direction. On every chair there uty chief librarian, are part of new is a tablet that can be switched from initiatives that the library faculty left to right for the student’s conve- has come up with to help Baruch nience . students. “If I want to sleep I go down- Th e StudyPods have taken over stairs, but if I want to study I come the area on the third fl oor across here for the comfortable chairs,” from the laptop loan desk, where said freshman Max Pashinskiy. the microfi lm machines used to Sounds are not blocked out be located. Th ey are small cubicles completely, but the atmosphere is that have swivel chairs with tablets peaceful, especially with only a few and accessible outlets for laptops students walking in between the and other electronics. area. “We got the idea from the sug- Th e pods are not crowded early gestions of students for more pri- in the morning and it is easy to fi nd vate study space,” said Professor a seat. Most students are either us- Jerry Bornstein, deputy chief librar- ing their laptops or DVD players. ian. During the afternoon, it is hard- Every two years the library dis- er to fi nd a seat here, and once penses surveys to students.